False Alarm (You Can't Just Waltz Out)
by Entwinedlove
Summary: One-Shot. / Sirius gets a lesson in growing up when adult decisions need to be made.


**False Alarm (You Can't Just Waltz Out)**

_Sirius gets a lesson in growing up when adult decisions need to be made._

Pairing: Lily/Sirius  
Rating: mature  
Warnings: underage sex, dialogue heavy  
Tropes: pregnancy scare, briefly implied abortion, reckless teenagers, too many hormones and emotions not enough thinking, accidental pregnancy, teenage pregnancy, dancing, teenage drama, teenage angst  
Words: 5,459  
Original Release Date: 7 Feb 2020

* * *

Early February 1977 (Spring Term of Sixth Year)

"...this project will be due in five weeks and will count for a major part of your spring term marks for both Defense Against the Dark Arts and Charms, so choose your partner with consideration. You're dismissed," Flitwick said to the class. Sirius stopped his inkwell and tossed his notes and sixth-year Charms text into his rucksack as the noise of the class elevated.

"Hey Evans," James called across the room, "Want to go out with me?"

She answered with a bored, annoyed tone that spoke of the number of times James had already asked that question this week. "No, Potter."

"How about something with a bit less commitment, want to be my partner for this assignment?"

She picked up her bag and walked towards their side of the classroom. Sirius glanced down at his watch and determined if he walked fast he'd be able to go back up to Gryffindor tower to grab his forgotten Transfiguration homework. He turned and started towards the door, his mind already thinking about the secondary route he'd need to take to avoid the shifting stairs and the clog of third years headed towards the Divination tower.

"Hey Black," Evans called from behind him. He turned at the door to look back at her. "Will you be my partner for this?"

He was still focused on his immediate task—McGonagall would surely give him detention if he showed up to class without his homework—and agreed just to get him out of the classroom. "Yeah, sure."

It wasn't until he was sitting in Transfiguration across the room from James that it even dawned on him what he'd agreed to. James was glaring.

* . * . *

"You could have said no, you know," James said as he moped into his mashed peas at dinner.

Sirius sighed. "Mate, I wasn't even really paying attention to you, I was trying to get upstairs to grab my Transfiguration homework. Besides, it's not like I'm trying to date her; it's just an assignment. You'll just partner with Remus."

"He paired up with Evans's usual partner, MacDonald."

"Then who did you get?"

"Vance," James said with disgust, plopping his fork back into his peas. It squished and splattered a bit of green onto the table.

"Really? You're upset about Vance? She's one of the best students in our year. Top marks in Defense and Charms, this project should be easy for you two." Sirius was already tired of his friend's grumpiness. It's not like he had gone after Evans on his own initiative. "You know she only asked me to irritate you."

James sighed and sat up straight. "I know. It just seemed like the perfect opportunity to get to know her better." He gazed up and over Sirius's shoulder and his voice turned dopey, "All that alone time..."

Sirius rolled his eyes and finished eating.

* . * . *

It was a few days before Valentine's when Sirius and Evans were finally able to schedule their first meeting. They were in one of the practice classrooms on the first floor, Sirius was sprawled back on a spare desk looking at the ceiling. Evans was sitting at a desk a little further away with a quill and parchment.

"We've got to select the base wards, customize them, write separate essays about our selections, and then be able to demonstrate them at the end of the six weeks, with some degree of mastery. Well, this shouldn't be too difficult."

Sirius could see her looking at him out of the corner of his eye. She looked peeved already. "The easiest base wards are the ones that stop people from physically entering a space, rather than say, stopping a portrait from leaving its frame," he said.

"All right." He heard the quill scratch across the parchment. "Then we ought to do something more advanced for the customizable bits."

It was quiet for a moment and then Evans sighed rather dramatically. Sirius finally looked over at her.

"What?" he asked.

"Are you going to participate in this or not?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" He sat up. "What do you want to do? Easiest stuff would be selecting who can enter by physical traits—gender, hair colour, height. Moderately advanced would be blocking people based on more abstract qualities."

Evans's brow furrowed. "Like what? What House they were sorted into?"

"Yeah, that would work, but random things, like...umm, what colour their pants are."

She snorted and shook her head. "I'm not going to get into that. I would rather not know what colour pants Professor Flitwick or Professor Grinstone wear."

"Or if they wear any at all," he said, grinning.

She raised her hands in front of her. "Stop, stop. I don't want to even think about that. What's the most advanced we could do with this?"

Sirius shrugged and leaned back on his hands. He missed the desk with one hand and slipped, then caught himself with the other. He looked at her to see if she'd caught his less-than-graceful moment. She was smirking. "Guess you aren't as smooth as you think you are," she muttered.

He thought about brandishing a rude gesture in her direction but thought better of it. "Blocking or allowing only one person through the wards is the most advanced."

"So I could block you specifically?"

"If I'm not in the room."

"What if you are in the room?"

In his position, his feet didn't quite touch the floor so he swung one back and forth, feeling the stone offer just a bit of resistance at the ball of his foot. "The spells fail."

"Oh," she said. She leaned back to scribble something else on her parchment. "So we'd need a third person to practice with otherwise we couldn't help each other with the spellcasting if we needed it." She paused for a second but before he could suggest anyone—Remus or, even better, James—she went on. "We don't have to choose yet. We can just do the research and write the essays."

Sirius stood up and headed for the door. "Great, so I'll meet you here in a few weeks when you've finished the esssays—"

"Oh, no you don't!" Evans said as the heavy iron lock on the door latched. Sirius rolled his eyes and turned around. "You're not going to mooch off my work. You're going to go to the library and research with me and write your own essay."

"Right now?" Sirius looked down at his wristwatch. "James has Quidditch practice."

"And you have to be there to cheer on your boyfriend, how sweet," Evans quipped. Her shoulders drooped a little though. "No, I don't suppose we go right now, but our next meeting—maybe Tuesday after dinner?—should be in the library."

Sirius pointed at her with both hands, "It's a date," then he turned around, unlocked the door, and made for the pitch.

* . * . *

"How was your Valentine's Hogsmeade trip?" Sirius asked when he pulled out the chair next to Evans's in the library the following Tuesday.

"Like you don't know," she griped. "You probably helped Potter with his ridiculous plan."

"I had no hand in his heart charms. That was Remus."

"The floating hearts above his head every time he saw me wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't followed me around the entire time we were there. Where were you, anyway?"

"With Remus."

She rolled her eyes and brushed her red hair over her shoulder. "Of course." She stood up. "I'll get started with the books on the customizing Charms while you get the Defense books dealing with wards. We'll each take notes and then duplicate them, that way we have the same starting point for our essays."

Sirius didn't get up. Instead tipped his chair back on two legs. "Whatever you say, Professor Evans."

She raised her eyebrows at his quip and then walked behind him towards the Charms section. On her way, she shoved down hard at the back of his chair. He flailed and grabbed for the table edge to stop from flipping back. Once the chair was back on four legs he glared at the place she'd disappeared between the stacks.

* . * . *

They met up twice more in the library before Evans decided they had enough material to work with for the sort of in-depth essay required, then they made plans to use the last two weeks of their allotted five to work on the practicals.

For once, Sirius was in the practice classroom before Evans, though he wasn't alone.

"Potter, Pettigrew," Evans said when she entered the room, "What are you two doing here?"

"Volunteering," Potter said with a smile and dopey eyes.

She looked at Sirius with irritation already written on her features. "You couldn't have found someone else?"

Sirius shrugged. "We need to be able to recognize James's magical signature to be able to block him. I mean, I can already recognize it, so you need to, you know, get familiar."

Peter sniggered from the corner.

"Fine. Cast a Charm, Potter."

He bounced his eyebrows at her before raising his wand. "Avis." Tiny songbirds appeared in the air, fluttering above their heads.

Evans had closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling out James's magic the way Flitwick had taught them last year. After a moment, she opened her eyes and cancelled Vanished the birds. "All right, now you can leave."

"But—"

She pointed to the door and James's shoulders dropped. He trudged out the door and Peter followed.

"We'll get you to test it once we've practised," Sirius said, hoping to reassure his friend that he'd get to spend more time with Evans.

She shut the door behind them with a bit more force than warranted. She took another deep breath and then looked at him. "So..."

"I'll go first," he offered. She nodded and took a seat at one of the desks. He stood from where he was leaning against another desk and drew his wand. He already had practice with the basic wards that lock everyone out—he'd used those enough when he wanted a little privacy, but the added Charms to allow only James entrance were new. His wandwork was fluid and measured, the tip dipping at just the right interval for the wards... he could feel the beginning of the wards start to tingle on his skin... but then he flubbed the series of Charms and the tingle stopped abruptly. He cleared his throat, a little embarrassed, and made sure he was standing up straight. He glanced once in Evans's direction but she didn't seem like she was going to call him out on his failed first attempt. He tried it again, getting the timing right but missed a wand-swish at the end of the last Charm.

He took a deep breath, repeating the wand movements in his head to make sure he remembered them all, then tried it again. The tingles started again, making the hair on his arms stand up, and with a tiny flourish at the last swish, felt the more definite buzz-zap that indicated the customized ward was in place.

"Three tries," he said, "Not my worst work." He looked back at her and she was nodding.

"That last swish does seem to trip up a lot of people," she said, looking up at him. He'd forgotten she tutored fourth- and fifth-year students in Charms. Charms weren't his strongest subjects by far, that was Defense and Transfiguration, but he wasn't the worst at them. He cancelled the ward and then brought it up again, focused on remembering that final swish. The buzz-zap on his skin let him know he'd done it. He smiled at Evans.

She smiled back.

He cancelled the ward and sat down on one of the desktops as she stood, ready to have a try. He watched her, hearing the timing in his head as she worked. She didn't get very far before the telltale tingle on his skin stopped. She huffed a breath through her nose and checked to make sure her feet were in the proper stance. She tried again, the tingle rose up, and then stopped. Her jaw clenched as she started again.

After the seventh attempt and Evans getting more aggravated, he finally found the pattern in her failures. She was having trouble with the timing between the ward and the Charms.

"I think I know where you're going wrong," he said.

She glared at him and gripped her wand tighter as she started an eight attempt.

"Evans, you're getting stiffer and that's making things even more difficult. Breathe, it's not the end of the world."

She dropped her wand arm to her side and looked at him, frustrated and angry. "Well what am I doing wrong, Mr-three-times-the-Charm?" she snapped.

His brow furrowed at what she said, he'd never heard anything about doing a Charm three times and thought maybe it was a Muggle saying. He brushed the thought away and focused on the issue. "You're having trouble with the timing, right? You either come in too early with the Charms or you come in too late and rush through the first one."

"That's not really all that helpful." She ground out through her teeth, raising her arm to try again.

She was still stiff with anger and he knew another failure was imminent. He tried to think of how to explain the timing. "It's like a waltz. Dun-dun-dun, Dun-dun-dun."

Some of her frustration leaked out of her expression and she looked at him oddly. "You can waltz?"

"And foxtrot and tango, not the point. You're not getting the timing, that's why you're struggling with the ward and may be why you have trouble with other Defense spells," he said. He stood and went over to her, reaching out to take her non-wand hand in his. "Dance with me."

She tucked her wand into her pocket and then looked at his shoulder and chest like she didn't know where to put her hands. He manoeuvred her into position, putting his arm around her back and pulling her a step closer until their chests were almost touching. "Dun-dun-dun, Dun-dun-dun," he hummed, taking the first two steps. She stumbled and looked down at their feet. "You don't know the steps?"

She shook her head and then looked back up at him. The stiffness in her posture had returned so he took a step back. "I've got an idea. We'll meet back here tomorrow and—"

"But I didn't even finish casting it once!" she protested, reaching up to tug lightly at her hair.

"You're too frustrated right now. We'll try again tomorrow. Remember, we've got two weeks to practice before we have to demonstrate for Flitwick and Grinstone." He normally liked to irritate her himself, and he found it amusing when James irritated her but seeing her struggle to cast the advanced but not difficult spell made him speak softer to her than usual. "I'll help you. We'll practice every day until you can do it in your sleep, all right?"

She nodded.

* . * . *

The following day when the met up in the practice classroom, Evans seemed shocked to find Sirius wearing dress shoes and fiddling with a mechanical metronome. "What are you doing with that?"

"I'm going to give you a crash course on waltzing," he said, standing up. The metronome started to click.

"I don't need to learn how to waltz, Black, I need to learn how to cast this ward."

"And waltzing will help you do that." He stepped closer to her and put her left hand on his shoulder before taking her right in his left. In doing so, he again brushed their chests together. He could feel as she started to pull away. "Come on, I'm not that repulsive. I showered recently."

She snorted in amusement and inhaled, before stepping back into place. Before he could start his lesson, she asked, "Why no music?"

"You've got to feel the beat, let it get into your head and your bones. Music can mask it." She raised her eyebrows like she didn't believe him. He tilted his head and shrugged one shoulder. "And I couldn't find a record player."

"But you found a metronome?"

"Borrowed it from Flitwick."

She chuckled. He grinned before launching into everything he knew about how to dance the waltz.

* . * . *

Sirius found a record player and they met in the classroom after dinner every day to work on their dance until curfew. Sirius practised their ward in his dorm room at night, where more than once Peter got locked out for a bit because he was faffing about in the bathroom before bed.

At first, Sirius was disciplined and kept his thoughts strictly on teaching but as the week progressed and Evans got better, he started noticing... other things. Like how soft her breasts were when she was pressed so close to him, or the curve of her waist where his hand rested, or the swell of her arse when his hand shifted. Her hair smelled really good too. It wasn't until dancing day twelve—with two days left before the end of term and the assignment due date—than he got the sudden urge to kiss her at the end of their lesson. It shocked him and he might have been more abrupt with her than usual when he said they'd start working on her ward casting the following day.

If Evans seemed startled by his behaviour change she didn't mention it.

* . * . *

The waltz lessons helped. Evans successfully cast the custom ward on her second try the following day. Before he could even stand up from his leaning position to congratulate her, she'd bounded over to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him down for a celebratory kiss.

It was short, nothing more than a peck on the lips, but she jumped back from him like she'd been burned. Her hand raised to her lips and she looked shocked like she hadn't exactly meant to do it. Sirius was shocked too but regained his equilibrium much faster because he leaned back down and kissed her back—a real kiss—deliberate, lingering, with just the smallest brush of his tongue against her lips. Her lip balm tasted like chocolate.

He was almost expecting a slap or at least a shove, but instead, she put her hands on his shoulders and continued the kiss, opening her lips and deepening the experience.

In the back of his mind, there was a quiet voice whispering dumb things like probably shouldn't be kissing her... don't have this sort of relationship... James fancies her... but as her fingers started working on the buttons of his fly those thoughts quieted until all he heard was their half-discarded clothes rustling, bare skin slapping together, and their ragged breathing.

When it was over, it seemed sense had returned. Evans—Lily—redressed quickly and left the classroom without saying anything, without meeting his eyes, and Sirius was left to wonder what the hell had just happened.

He dressed more slowly, trying to figure out where this began, whatever this was. He was quieter than normal amongst his friends and had trouble sleeping before he concluded that whatever happened had just been out-of-control hormones and excitement, nothing else.

* . * . *

Sirius brought James and Peter along for their last practice day. Lily barely looked at him and seemed more snappy with James than usual, even with James's typical ask-Evans-on-a-date-every-time-he-sees-her behaviour. Both she and Sirius accomplished the custom ward on their first try and James and Peter tested it. James was able to walk right through while Peter was stuck in the hallway. When Sirius suggested they try it a few more times, Lily dismissed it and departed.

They often saw each other, in classes, in the common room, at dinner—they were in the same House—but somehow for the next day and a half she made herself scarce. He only saw her during the practical exam for their assignment. They both did well and were sent out with top marks, free to start their spring holidays without worrying over exam scores.

He didn't see her at all over the hols and if he moped a little alongside James for her absence, no one called him on it.

* . * . *

Mid-April 1977 (Summer Term of Sixth Year)

Lily approached Sirius and his friends as they were headed out to the Quidditch pitch after dinner to watch James practice.

"Hey, Black, can I talk to you?"

"You can talk to me," James responded first.

Lily didn't even look in his direction, instead, she pinned Sirius with a determined look.

He felt strangely nervous under her piercing stare and nodded. "Yeah, sure. I'll catch up with you guys on the pitch." He walked towards her and she turned and led him in the direction of the practice classroom they'd used the previous term. As soon as the door was shut behind them she turned to face him.

"I'm late," she said, her gaze focused on the floor.

Sirius was confused. "I'm sorry?"

She looked up at him like he should have known what she was talking about. "My period, Sirius, I'm late." Her gaze returned to the floor at his feet. "I think I'm pregnant."

Sirius's hearing seemed to blot out all sound for a moment, all that was left was the ringing in his ears. Oh shit oh shit oh shit... "James is going to kill me."

Her voice sounded loud when the ringing in his ears faded. "James is going to kill you? I'm going to kill you. My parents are going to kill you! Professor McGonagall—where are you going?"

Faced with her anger and the overwhelming sensation of inevitable chaos, Sirius had turned to run away. He looked back over his shoulder at her, swallowed the lump in his throat, and reached for the door.

"You can't just walk away from this, Sirius!"

Feeling only a little ashamed of himself, he fled the room.

* . * . *

After pacing the dormitory floor for almost an hour, Sirius met James and the others in the common room. "Uh, Remus, can I talk to you a second?" he asked. To his own ears, he sounded harried and strange; the others noticed.

"Missed you at practice, Sirius," James said as he passed. "I'm going to shower."

Remus followed Sirius up to their dorm room and shut the door behind him. He sat down at the end of his bed and watched Sirius with a mature sort of worried look. "What's going—"

"Lily's pregnant," Sirius blurted out, pacing in quick agitated steps.

Remus's eyebrows shot up. "And you're involved—"

"It was one time," Sirius said, stopping his frantic pacing to rub his hands over his face and then back over his hair. "Before the break."

Remus nodded and took a deep breath, thinking before he spoke. "And you talked to her, she's sure it's yours?"

Sirius dropped gracelessly onto the foot of the bed opposite Remus. "She told me. She wouldn't have told me if it was someone else's right?" He flopped back raking his hands through his hair, "I'm not ready to be a father."

"Who's pregnant?" James asked as he entered the room, still damp from his shower. Peter followed.

"Evans," Remus answered plainly.

Sirius sat up on the bed to gave Remus a peeved look.

"Nah. She's a prefect, a good girl," James said, shrugging it off. Striding towards his bed and trunk he said, "Besides, why would she tell Siri...us." He stopped mid-stride and looked at Sirius. "Sirius, why would she tell you?"

Sirius couldn't help but hear the innocence in James's question, the hopefulness that the conclusion he'd come to was wrong. When Sirius wasn't forthcoming with an answer, the expression on James's face shifted quickly from suspicious, to accusative, to hurt, to anger. "I've fancied her for years and you... and you just..."

"It wasn't like that, James, I swear, I—"

James was shaking his head. "I don't want to hear it. Not right now. Maybe not ever." He turned and headed out of the room. Peter looked between Sirius and James and then followed James. When the door slammed shut Sirius's hearing shorted out for the second time that day.

Betrayed. He'd betrayed James in the worst way. Sirius put his head in his hands letting his hair hang around his face like a curtain, hiding. "Merlin, fuck, what have I done," he muttered.

"Did you at least talk to her? See what she wants to do about it?" Remus asked, picking their conversation thread back up.

Sirius shook his head but didn't bother raising it. After a poignant pause, he looked back up at Remus. "I walked out. Walked right out of the room, didn't say anything besides..."

"Besides what?"

"'James is going to kill me.'" Remus was a smart man—he didn't comment on that.

"What do I do now?" Sirius all but begged.

"The way I see it, you have some choices to make. You could take the typical Sirius childish option, where you ignore her and her problem."

"Or?" Sirius asked. He'd already chosen that option once when he'd walked away from her and he'd been feeling guilty for it since.

"Or you take the mature route and talk things out with Evans. She didn't get pregnant on her own and she shouldn't have to bear the burden or the decisions alone unless she chooses too. And knowing that she told you, I'd say that means she wants you to be part of that discussion."

"And with James?"

Remus shrugged. "Give him some time to cool off... maybe, given time, he'll... listen to what you have to say? I honestly don't know."

Sirius nodded and sighed. All right, talk to Lily. He could do that. "Where's the map?"

* . * . *

Lily didn't present many opportunities for Sirius to catch her alone until three days later. The instant she noticed him with no one else around she became cross. "What do you want?"

He inhaled and hoped the words he'd been practising in his head came out resembling what he wanted to say. "I wanted to apologize. I shouldn't have walked away from you. I'm sorry."

Her angry expression didn't change.

"That was irresponsible of me... and I'd like a second chance to show you that I can be better—"

"You don't grovel very well," she said. The anger in her expression slipped away to reveal the hurt underneath. "I'm scared, Sirius."

He huffed through his nose and gave her a pathetic grin. "Me too." He took a step closer to her and lightly brushed her arm with his hand. "So what do we do?"

"Don't tell anyone. At least not until I know for sure."

He felt his stomach drop. "Umm, too late for that one."

She looked up at him. "You told them?" She stepped away from him and ran her hand through her hair. "Why should I have expected anything different," she muttered to herself.

"What do you mean 'until you know for sure?'" he asked.

She turned back around to face him. "Just that. I think I'm pregnant. My period's late, which is usually the first sign."

"Is there a test or something to know for certain?" Sirius tried not to let hope slip into his question. They may be of age, but that didn't mean he was ready for kids.

"There's a testing centre on Essex Road in Islington," she answered.

"In London." He looked over her shoulder while he thought about that. "Is there any place closer?"

"That's the only one I found a leaflet for."

"Maybe we could go to Madam Pomfrey—"

"No!" she interjected, then looked embarrassed for her outburst. "It's just that... I don't want anyone to know."

His brow furrowed. "Then we just wait and see? Until July when school's over? Wouldn't that be too late then if..."

She nodded and suddenly burst into tears, "Oh God Sirius, I don't know what to do!"

Unsure himself, he wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face into her hair.

* . * . *

James was easier to track down but harder to talk to. Sirius didn't think he'd been given the silent treatment this long in his life. Finally, when it was just the two of them in the dorm, Sirius had a chance to talk to him.

"Hey, James, can we talk?"

James turned his head away but didn't get up to leave. Sirius considered that an improvement. "So, I just wanted to say that this wasn't planned. I hadn't—we didn't—plan this. It was a spur of the moment bad decision on both our parts. She was having trouble with the Defense part of our assignment so I taught her to waltz to help with the timing. You know how intimate a waltz is... an then, there was a celebratory kiss, and well... bad decisions." Sirius sighed and opened his mouth to ramble on some more when James looked at him.

"Celebratory kiss? Who kissed who?"

"She kissed me first."

"And then..."

Sirius nodded, "And then. I'm not proud of it, but I kissed her back. I never intended to... go after the girl you fancied. Much less... this."

James frowned and looked at his hands in his lap. "So it wasn't just you... making a play or something, manipulating her into it."

It hurt Sirius that his best friend would think that he had somehow tricked Lily into having sex with him. "No, she was an... active participant. Initiator, even."

James reached down and fidgeted with a loose thread on his duvet. He signed. "I know she's not 'mine' or anything but it's just galling that she and you... after I tried so many things to get her to go out with me."

Sirius shrugged, "Maybe it was because I wasn't irritating the snot out of her trying to get her on a date?" He stood up, ready to leave James to his morose thoughts. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm sorry. I don't expect you to forgive—"

He was interrupted by a pillow to the face.

"Of course, you're forgiven, arsehole. You think I'd give up our friendship over a girl?"

Sirius made a face as if to say, 'well look where we are.'

James shook his head. "You're an idiot."

"I know."

* . * . *

It was another nerve-racking week, ending with a near-splinching in their Saturday morning Apparition class when Lily walked by and patted him on the shoulder in the common room. He looked over at her and she beckoned him out the portrait with a tip of her head. They didn't go all the way down to the practice classroom but she wound her way through a few secret passages until he was sure they weren't near any portraits.

"Everything okay?" he asked, trying to study her face in the dark alcove. He lit the tip of his wand to illuminate the space.

"I started my period this morning. I'm not pregnant."

An imagined weight seemed to lift off of his shoulders at her pronouncement. "Really?"

"Really."

He breathed a relieved sigh. "Oh, thank Merlin." Without much thought, he reached forward and pulled her into a hug. She hugged back, her hands clenching at the fabric of his shirt. He rocked back and forth with her, feeling lighter than he had in over a week, and she laughed and pushed away from him.

"Will you go out with me, Sirius?" she asked.

His eyebrows raised. He was shocked that one, she would ask in the first place, two, that she wanted to go out with him of all people, and three, she would want to go out with him after this pregnancy scare. "I, umm..."

"Or will you say no because of James's infatuation with me?"

He actually gave that a moment's thought before answering. "He does fancy you but I think he's come to terms with the fact that you might want to date people who aren't him."

She grinned. "You didn't answer my question."

He thought back to Remus's previous advice. Walking away from Lily Evans wasn't something he wanted to do. "Yeah, I'll go out with you."

"Good," she said and then immediately went up on her tiptoes to press her lips to his. He groaned but aside from helping her balance with his hands on her waist, he didn't take things any further. He could feel her gentle smile under his lips. He pulled back and pressed his face into her hair. He groaned again though this time in dread.

"What?" she asked.

"I've got to tell the guys it was a false alarm."

She giggled a little into his shoulder.


End file.
